It shouldn’t happen but occasionally even good programs (Dreamweaver included) go bad . If Dreamweaver continually crashes on opening (or exhibits other strange behavior) one of the first things to try is recreating the preferences file.

• For Mac OS X/DW CS4:
  • Quit Dreamweaver (if it already hasn’t done that for you!).
  • Locate the Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Prefs file (it’s located in the username/Library/Preferences folder) and delete it.
  • Restart Dreamweaver and hope for the best.
  • Dreamweaver will recreate the Preferences file. You’ll lose your previous preference setting and have to reset any custom preferences but hopefully the program will be stable now.
• For PCs:
  • The procedure involves editing the Windows registry so I’ll refer you to Adobe for the instructions. It’s under item #5 on this page…